Gatewalker Book 1: Not the Best First Experience
by Shieb
Summary: My name is Danielle and I'm stuck in another world as a taxi driver- I think. I was shocked when I saw Vincent walking toward me. And Max didn't call him back. How will I survive the night? Rated M to be safe.
1. Intro

In every book, you are given a world that is not your own to explore and live in, provided you're given the correct nouns and adjectives that will allow you to experience another existence appropriately. No matter what book it is- whether it is a biography or a tale of dragons- to you, it is always fantasy. It is not a world that exists in your reality, not a life that you know personally. Even if you're reading a book about Shakespeare's life, this applies. Although he did exist for a certainty in our world, he did not directly touch us, and therefore does not truly have a form to us, except in our minds.

Having said this, I find it a shame that this documentary will be cast aside as yet another fantasy story, to be tossed in the Fiction pile. For, as I stated before, I am not a part of your world. I have not interacted with you, and therefore what I write is just another reality, just another world, and is completely separate from what you call your reality. I truly find it disappointing.

In my years, I have found that it is best not to force the truth upon people. So I have come up with a compromise. That compromise involves me writing a simple book.

This is a log of my life. I will not start from the very beginning, for that would be very boring and it will be hard enough to shorten my hundreds of years to just a few pages without adding in lists of mundane facts. Forgive me if I come across as rude, but it would be like reading the beginning of the bible. And who is going to turn these pages if they find the very first uninteresting? I need people to read this. After all, I'm not writing this for my health.

I will tell you my life. I will tell you how I was once unarguably human. I will tell you how I grew from a single being to an entity, how I destroyed planets, how I destroyed friendships, and how I traversed worlds. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I begin writing this in the midst of battle. I've made a horrible mistake, I now realize. Of course, we often try to correct those mistakes at the worst of moments. To have made a problem as big as this is bad enough as it is. But what I did was truly absurd. I don't even know if the space/time continuum will survive this, and so I have no idea if, when things reset, this book will make it to the world that was. Perhaps I am merely wasting my time. But if this works, the reward may far outweigh the consequences.

Please forgive me. I have rambled on enough. I shall hurry with the documentation.

**Shieb: Ok, this is the prologue to a very long project. The story will be jumping from reality to reality, so who knows just how many books I'll be writing? Anyways, the next chapter is just to set up what the girl's life was like before the phenomenon that changed her life, so I apologize if you Collateral fans get bored. If you just wanna read the part where she's in the Collateral world, skip to the third chapter.**

**Always remember that my activities are on my profile, so if you want to know what I have planned, check there.**

**Also, Gatewalker will be spanning many different books, movies, whatever, so I will be putting up a poll to see who wants to see what fanfic up here. No guarantees, but I will take your opinions into strong consideration.  
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	2. To Before the World That Is

The alarm went off, beeping annoyingly to make me aware of both my time and purpose. I reached a hand out from the folds of my blanket to feel along the computer desk that was next to my bed. Finally finding the alarm, I punched down the button on its top with annoyance, and then turned over.

It was yet another day in my life. Not that I was one of those pessimistic drug addicts or something. I loved my life. I loved my parents, I loved my friends, and I had a healthy hate for those who had a grudge against me. Go figure, I was a high-schooler. The problem I had with this scene was just a personal thing. I was not a morning person.

Rolling out of bed in a not so sprightly fashion, I made my way to my dresser to grab the top piece of clothing off the piles for jeans, socks, and shirts, respectively. I wasn't too occupied with appearances, and I had never been for years on end. So I tossed on my clothes after changing out of the overly large shirt and shorts that made up my pajamas. I drew a brush quickly through my hair, ripping out any strand that dared to tangle my shoulder-length, ash brown locks.

A peculiar thing about me had always been what I preferred for clothing. Most girls at my school wouldn't leave the house without doing their hair, spending half an hour just to properly choose their clothes, and maybe get some breakfast and have an argument with the family. I never did my hair. If I ever did anything with my hair, it was to put it up in a ponytail. I also often wore clothes that were too big for me, just because they were more comfortable and because it made more of a point that I was different from all the other girls from school. And I almost never fought with the family.

Dressed and wearing my leather shoes, I made my way down the concrete hall to a ladder which connected the basement to the ground floor. I made my way up it, feeling it sway a little unsteadily.

On the ground floor, a thin blue carpet, with stains dotting it here and there from coffee and grease spills alike, covered the wooden boards. I walked past the bathroom, through the kitchen, and entered the living room, where I put the heavy bag, lunch box, and water bottle on the couch.

For a moment, I listened. Dean, my stepfather, was already gone. He woke up early to go to work as an electrician. That job pulled in a surprising amount of money. After all, he did buy this property and build this house with that money. It took a lot of hands-on work for him.

I could hear the washer and dryer downstairs. I must have just missed Mother. She often turned both the washer and dryer on in the mornings, just before we were to leave.

I made my way to the kitchen again, bearing my water bottle and lunch box with me. I filled the water bottle, and began making a balanced, but ultimately unfulfilling lunch. A sandwich with mayonnaise, an apple, and a snack bag of some kind of chips were shoved into the lunch bag.

I heard mother coming up the metal latter. The familiar creaking made me get up from clock watching and round the door jam between the living room and the kitchen to see my mother. With a bony face, similar length of darker hair, and a generally small frame, I adored my mother, both in looks and personality. She could find a way to smile in any situation and was often smiling in every situation. That woman looked to the bright side of everything, a quality I wished I had.

"Hey, Bug. Having a good morning?"

"Same old, same old." I smiled, hugging her.

We proceeded into the living room, where Mom sat on a chair that was facing to the side of a white, oval table that was placed against the wall. She wouldn't have to leave for another fifteen minutes after me, so she had her shoes off, her white socks bearing grey toes. I never liked those socks.

"Hey, Mom? I was wondering. Is it ok if I go over to Ali's house this weekend?"

"Sure. Just make sure it's all set up with her parents."

"Of course. I just wanted to see if it was possible before setting up the details."

"Of course." she smiled. I always felt so blessed when she smiled.

Five minutes before the bell for classes to begin, the bus arrived at the school. It was a relatively small school, despite the fact that it had two floors. In fact, our town was extremely small. So small, in fact, that the school held maybe 400 students and not enough teachers. It was the cause of one of the weird things about Chewelah; everybody knew everybody. Well, except me.

I was an anti-social who took her work seriously. My motto, as far as work was concerned, was that if I was going to do anything, I was going to do it well. That applied to my school work as well. That's not to say that I had motivation. Motivation might as well have not been my vocabulary. I was lazy, only doing what was required and not a fraction more. I was smart enough to get by on that, often being called upon by fellow students for help because I understood everything without really trying.

I walked up to the school, my backpack slung over one shoulder. The school doors were already opened by those who had exited the bus before me, and I made my way into the slightly warm halls of the building. My steps brought me to the cafeteria, where three solitary long tables were set up for those who ate breakfast at school.

That reminded me. I forgot breakfast. Whoops.

I weaved my way through the before school crowd and made it to one of the tables, where a few of my friends were all grouped together.

"Hey guys." I said casually.

"Morning Danielle." said Chaytis', looking unhappy about something. She always seemed to have some problem or another, although I couldn't really blame her. Chaytis' had been forced to grow up due to her mother's childish habits. One of those habits was likely to be Chaytis' current focus of her frustration.

"How're your mornings going?" I tossed my backpack on a set of small steps that would lead to the choir and band's room, if it weren't for a thin, foldable wall.

"So-so." said JD. He was tall, reminding me of the fact that I used to be taller than everybody else. But then high school came. His personality reminded me of myself, when I was in sixth grade; trusting in only himself, not appreciating any length of affection, and thinking of himself as strong and letting anybody who challenged it know just how strong he was.

JD's girlfriend agreed with him, looking much smaller than him with her more petite bone structure and lacking height. Her shape was strikingly similar to my mother's- they were both what I liked to call 'twigs'.

I was tapped on the shoulder and turned to view Ali, my closest friend, although she didn't know it. She gave me a half hug, her arm extending across my shoulders, and proceeded to greet me.

I didn't return the hug. It was an odd thing for me. I didn't like being touched, but I'd tolerate a few of my friends. I'd stiffen each time someone hugged me, regardless of who they were, and I'd often prefer shaking someone's hand to a hug. I'd never had a boyfriend, I was stingy around people I didn't know, and it had often earned me rather rude titles around school. I was ok with it. Hell, I wanted it; anything to keep all the rambling idiots with no real value to their brains away from me.

Ali understood my problems with being close to people, and she did her best to respect it. Despite that, she did constantly lecture me. She didn't seem to think it was right to just push people away.

My best friend pulled me away from the rest of the group after making brief conversation with everyone.

"I think something's up." I raised a brow questioningly at her, and she began to clarify. "There's been a lot of traffic through our area lately. Like, some stay, some don't, and most aren't even supposed to legally be here."

"Go figure. We're district 7. It is the magic number, after all."

"Yeah, but this is weirder than our usual bunch. I mean- centaurs? In our area? That's a little weird."

I had to pause. Then I nodded, agreeing. Centaurs probably tend to prefer a lot of flat areas, not the vast ranges of mountains that tend to surround a valley like this.

"Still, as long as they're not doing anything stupid and don't get anybody hurt, I don't think we should butt in." I said, as if I was a commander giving tactical advice.

"Ch. You've grown soft in your old age, Ms. Super Assassin." Ali chided. I frowned at her. Then we returned to the group, just in time to hear Chaytis' talking about how everything around her was still unnaturally cold. Must've been a ghost following her around. Again.

This was my life. I only had a few friends, and I treasured each one. I had, in a sense, collected them. But I can only stand a few people, so can you blame me? We play a game as if it was reality. The short way to put it is that we roleplay. The long version is that I think some of my group actually believed there was a world parallel to our own, existing on the same plane of reality, but only we and a few others could see it.

This reality didn't really exist. I had never seen anything to prove it, merely felt the slight coldness that seemed to emanate off Chaytis' when she claimed another ghost had followed her. That was the closest to magic I had ever gotten to. Which was sad, because that was only a vague suggestion, not worthy of being called proof.

In this reality we had created, all magical creatures existed, and magic was a running part of the world, like the flow of energy that we had grown so accustomed to in our lives. We manipulated that flow of energy to do things- amazing things. We could run from one mountain to another in a minute, we could wrestle with the current top demons of the underworld without a scratch, and, perhaps the best of all, none of our more annoying human enemies could touch us.

I'll be the first to admit it was a superiority complex that made me join this group. Well, actually, I created it. I was the first to just start roleplaying with Ali, my best friend in the world. She played along, and it spread to the rest of the friend circle we had. Before I knew it, half the kids in school were werewolves, vampires, and all manner of creatures. My least favorite of the bunch were the skinwalkers. Nasty beasts.

My friends were instant converts. They loved the idea of this other world, and so joined in the making of this other world, eventually coming out of the closet and telling me and my friends their breed with tentative stutters, only to find themselves being clapped on the back and welcomed into a group of weirdos.

This was what I was building. I was making a friend group who would take in anyone, no matter how weird. The more normal you were, the less we got along with you. If you were a strange kid with strange beliefs and an attitude problem, we were all more likely to stand up for you than we were for the prep that pretended she had personality.

I had become the queen of my castle, though I had never been the leader type. I trusted my friends, and they trusted me. We were a tight group by the end of eighth grade, and people stopped messing with us. We kept to our own, supported our own, and left the rest of the world to deal with its own problems.

But it was all a lie. I mean, the friendships were real. But we weren't all that much different from the rest of the kids. We had the same attitude problems. We used the other reality to make ourselves higher, stronger, and better than everybody else. It was a way to say 'stupid humans' without pointing at ourselves, too. After all, a half dragon wasn't the cause for crashing economies and the planet's deteriorating health. All mythical creatures respected the Earth in their own ways. Humans were the cause of pain, and since we weren't considering ourselves human, we weren't liable.

Of course, there were still people who messed with us. Or tried. It had taken the students years to figure out that it didn't pay to mess with me. I wasn't a bad ass, so it wasn't like people were afraid of me. It was just that whenever you tried to insult me, it failed miserably. Any claim of 'freak', 'weirdo', or 'bitch' was greeted with a 'thank you'. I was also very good at ignoring persistent people. In fact, I had taken a page from my mother's book and just kept smiling when presented when a tough situation.

But now I'm rambling. Far too much, in fact. I don't even know if you're interested in these facts. I'm just trying to accurately show you what my life was before. How 'normal' it was. I'll try to move on, now.

I skim my way through school, putting no real effort into my assignments. I take them, do what I can with them, but if they make even the slightest strain on me, I drop it and move onto something else, which can often get me in trouble. It's the end of January, so the beginning of school motivation has long since fled me.

I go to lunch, help my friends through their problems, and discuss more 'war tactics'. I take it seriously, like any good leader and friend would. We've all had a bad feeling since somewhere in the middle of last fall, anyways. Well, I know I did. I'm not so certain about the rest. After all, if they pretend to see fairies and centaurs, why wouldn't they pretend to have something as small as a bad feeling?

I then finished the second half of classes. The bell signaled freedom. It was the end of dealing with people I didn't want to deal with and wasting my time at a place where I wasn't really making any effort. I talked with my friends, making final 'preparations' for the day. Then the buses came, and I was off home.

It took maybe half an hour after I got home for Dean, my step father, to get back from work. My mother would be another hour and a half.

Dean was a giant of a man, with large hands that showed how much hands-on work he had done in his years. He used to be a man of much fat, but he had since changed and now he was tall and lanky, with giant night crawlers for veins. He was fit and strong.

Unfortunately, he was also a bit childish. He would make jokes even if they weren't funny and would sometimes push the punch line to the point where I wanted to snap at him to quit it. However, with my mother in mind, I would always take another page from her book when I was annoyed with him and ask him to stop, or just leave.

Dean also loved his toys. His favorite of these were his four wheelers, which we rode on a lot. Well, I didn't ride anymore because my attention span was so short I would get bored halfway through and complain. I liked the initial ride, but I didn't want to annoy other people, so I avoided riding anymore.

After Dean got home and before Mother got home, I decided to go for a walk down in the mini valley that dipped between Dean's house and the mountains behind it. There was a creek down there and more than enough tree-covered places with thin floors of snow that I could tolerate.

It was the last day of January in the year 2008. I remember because it was kind of a starting point for me. Whenever things went wrong later, I'd often go back to this very day. Because it was the beginning of everything.

As I trampled my way through the small valley, Dean's large black dog that could easily be mistaken for a bear plowing after me, I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was being watched. At first, I thought it was just that Cujo was intent upon me moving faster through the knee-deep snow, but then he moved in front of me, bounding to make his own path. I still felt the presence focusing on me.

I shook my head. I roleplayed too much- it was getting to my head. There couldn't be anybody watching me. Still, I stopped. I looked around, trying to see anything, even if it was Dean watching me from the top of the hill or a cougar crouched, belly down, in the snow. I saw nothing, though, which unnerved me more than seeing something- anything- would've.

Cujo seemed to sense my nervousness. He whined now and then, sticking his cold black nose on my gloved hand. I'd pet him and move on. I just had to get to my spot in the woods. Then I would be fine, and I could head back home.

I walked up to the fallen-over tree bough that served as a bridge over the creek. It occurred to me that it was probably icy, and the water below was freezing cold. If I crashed through, I might not make it back home. I stopped, unnerved. Oh well, I'd have to go back home.

Thrilled to be heading home, the giant black dog bound his way under the trees, where there was not quite so much snow to fight against as there was in an open field. And then it hit me.

No, I didn't have an epiphany. Something literally hit me; went through me, became part of me, and then left me. I suddenly became aware of this vast other presence that was a million times larger than I was- no, larger than that. Its size was immeasurable, and yet it felt familiar as it passed through me. The last thing I remember before I blacked out was that it felt like, even though it had left me, it had left something with me- a piece of something that I saw in my mind as a shining white gem.

I woke up in my bed. My body hurt, though I wasn't sure why. It was aching and I felt stiff. Then I remembered the walk through the woods, the feeling that I had been watched, and the strange feeling of something going through me. I shivered in my bed and pulled the blankets higher, to cover my face.

I looked at the clock on the computer desk. Somebody had turned off my alarm. It was nine in the morning, the first day of February.

It took a few minutes for me to persuade myself, but I finally got up from my bed. I sat up, stiff. It felt like I hadn't moved all night, my neck permanently crooked forward. I rolled my neck, shifted my shoulders, and tensed my back to pop the little air bubbles that had acquired a position on my unmoving spine.

As if my movement was a cue, my mother entered the room, smiling with relief when she saw me sitting up.

"Hey, honey. How're you?"

"Stiff. Tired. Confused." I supplied. "What happened?"

"You didn't come back home for hours. Dean went down into the valley to find you. Cujo came home without you, looking spooked. He found you alright, but you were asleep. We don't know what happened down there, but…"

I felt the urge from my mother and smiled, supplying a comforting hug. She stroked my hair for a couple moments. Then she held me at arms length, taking a look at me.

"So you're feeling alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just stiff, is all. A little movement will do me some good."

"And what happened down there? Do you remember?"

I tried to think back to it. I remembered the feeling like I got hit by something, and only now recognized the memory of Cujo's yelp. The presence probably scared him as much as me, and I certainly deserved to be more frightened. I shook my head, undecided as to what to do.

"I… well… I remember walking towards my spot. I decided not to cross to the other side, and started to head home. And then…" I hesitated and looked at my mother. A single look was all it took to remind myself that I could tell my mother anything, and she wouldn't make a mockery of me. "Well, I felt as if something hit me, and then went _through_ me… Like… Something big, like… bigger than big… It was… immense, I don't even have the words to describe it. It was larger than the galaxy, larger than the universe. Maybe larger than two."

My voice had grown faint by the last sentence. The sensation was weird enough to experience, and the presence was terrifying. Trying to describe it did no justice.

After assuring my mother that everything was ok, we both returned to our respective jobs. I went to school and she had to return to the feed store. My friends asked me what had gone on, but I lacked the faith in that large crowd that I had in my mother. So I told them that I had just had a wild night, with a meaningful look towards my more trusted friends. They gave me knowing looks.

Life returned to a semblance of normalcy. Problem was that I was feeling anything but normal. I kept having this swelling feeling in my chest, like there was something lodged there that hadn't been there before. My memory shifted back to how I saw that piece of the presence that was stuck in me; a bright, glowing jewel in my chest. I snorted so loud in class at the absurdity of it that I attracted the attention of all of my peers. I focused on my paper.

Slowly, I got used to the feeling that there was something more to me, though I never quite found the words to describe it. I had never experienced anything like it before, how _could_ I describe it? I lived to the end of the week with almost a smothering normalcy. And then Sunday came.

I had made a deal with my parents long ago that I was not going to spend such a small amount of time with my father. I had pestered them for a few months while I was still little, commenting on how much I wanted to see my daddy. Until that moment when they agreed to make a new arrangement, I had been seeing my dad every other weekend.

Now, the arrangement was that my father and mother would take me every other week. Each Sunday at five in the afternoon, I'd switch houses. People who heard this usually began to pity me, saying that it must be hard on me. But it wasn't really that hard.

I loved both my parents dearly. They each had their own way of doing things and loved me in their own way. Mother was very kind, concerned, and cheery. Father, on the other hand, was often very quiet, serious, and pretty much kept to himself unless there was something he needed to know or needed help taking care of. While Mom gave me constant guidance and kept a close watch, Dad just made sure I was in a safe situation and would otherwise just let me be me. He trusted me to create my own person.

I packed up my bag, took all my school gear with me, and rode with Mom to my father's house. I said goodbye, gave the usual 'I love you', and walked inside the building. I turned left as I entered the small hallway that separated the two apartments that made up the building, and entered the small, narrow hallway that made most of the traveling space in the apartment.

I entered an incredibly small room, set my bags and small, dirty pillow on the bed, and then entered the living room. My father didn't turn from his computer. The TV was on in the entertainment center, a series episode playing loudly. A brown, leaf-patterned couch with scratched up arms occupied the outer wall, a wide window above it.

My dad was a frightening man to those who didn't know him. He was actually quite nice and considerate, but the first thing you saw when you looked at him was a seriousness and suppressed intensity that scared most people. He tended to hold back the intensity of his gaze so that he did not scare people off so much.

"Hey Dad." I smiled. "How was your week?"

"Er…" Dad turned from his computer, wearing a face that told me he was wondering why I kept asking that question every week. Well, what else was I supposed to ask? "Same as usual." he said finally, deciding that would suffice.

"So… You did nothing but work, Marge needs even more looking after, and it generally sucked?"

My father raised his brows as an affirmative, and then returned to his computer.

When I stayed with my father, I had access to a lot more technology than I did at my mom's. Dad let me use one of his computers, which I had set up in my room on one of his old desks. I also had internet, which was great. I was practically addicted to it. The ability to watch as many movies and anime as I had time for and access to was the cause of that addiction.

Strangely enough, this was the thing I needed to trigger what had been given to me.

That night, I lay in bed, watching Collateral from the comfort of my blankets. I thought about the fact that Dad still had to take care of Marge, our land lady. It was his job, after all. But she was old and growing weak. She knew this, and her reaction was to cling desperately to life and to have someone near her as often as she could.

I sighed, focused on the movie. It was weird, watching Tom Cruise in a movie where he wasn't being the hero. I was used to see him flying off rooftops and saving the girl. Now he was trying to kill the girl. Plus, the movie wasn't just a shoot-em-up. There was real psychology in it, and it interested me. I loved learning how people ticked. The scene right before Max flipped the car? Beautiful.

I went to sleep with guns and sleek, prematurely graying men walking through my dreams. Sometimes I got shot at, sometimes I had to shoot other people and run. Such was the way my dreams went; they were more action stories than anything normal.

Then I had a curious sensation. It was like I was feather-light. I felt myself lift out of my body. My mind vaguely wondered what was going on, being aware that I was supposed to be asleep. And then heaviness returned to my body, and I was content for a few moments.

Strange. I was back in my body, but I was sitting instead of standing. I didn't remember ever sitting up. So I opened my eyes to check out what was going on. Not only did I find that my eyes weren't tired or bleary, but I was sitting up against the back of the front seat to a taxi.

A taxi? Wait, how did I get in a taxi? And where was I? I was parked at the side of a pretty busy road. It was nighttime, there was another taxi in front of me, and it looked like I was in the middle of the city.

Wait… Where was I?

**Shieb: For those of you who braved the second chapter, congratulations. Now you can move on to the fun part. This chapter was meant to set up Danielle's life, so that you knew where she was coming from. The word 'normal' here is used a little bit more loosely than it would be in other books, where the character didn't roleplay everywhere. There will be at least one chapter like this in every book, since every book will address at least two things: the conflicts in her life, and how her experiences elsewhere changes them. In the end, you will see the two clashing. And that's where things will get _really_ fun.**


	3. How did I get Here?

**How did I get **_**Here**_**?**

I looked around, checked the meter. It wasn't running. Good. At least I wasn't being expected to drive when I was a teenager.

I shifted in my seat and felt something in my back pocket. Oh good! I had a wallet. I pulled it out, checked to see if anything was in it. There was. I found a driver's license. I looked at the age. I was 24? That picture looked like me. I looked in the rearview mirror. I looked like me, except older. It was weird seeing me this old. I glanced at the dash and noticed that I could've just checked the piece of paper there.

I took a look at what I was wearing. I had a coat on over a thin long sleeve and a tank top. There was a weight on my hip, and when I touched it, I found I had a gun there. The weight on my sleeves also allowed me to find that I had a couple of retractable knives in them. Everything I had was darkly colored, even the blades of my knives. I touched my hair and found it in a ponytail.

I tinkered with the touch screen and looked around the taxi, figuring out all that I could. I would've looked like a thief or a lunatic to anyone passing by. But I found that there was no denying that I had suddenly jumped into another life. Originally, I would have thought it was just a trick- my friends playing a joke on me. But how can you physically grow 11 years in one night? Less than one night, in fact.

I tried to calm myself, taking breaths to relax my shoulders and back, trying to make myself look natural. It wouldn't do for people to ask questions I didn't know the answers to. It all shattered as I looked up.

There was a man dressed in a grey suit. His hair was dark with flecks of grey and he had a beard. A sleek, silver fox. He looked like Tom Cruise. Wait. No, he was Tom Cruise. My eyes narrowed slightly. This couldn't be right. All hope that this was a joke vanished. It wasn't funny anymore.

Again, I tried to regain myself. I made my body language and face relax. If this was what my fantasy-engrossed mind thought it was, it wouldn't do to seem nervous.

I watched the man make his way down the steps of the justice building. He leaned into the taxi in front of mine. I could barely hear his distinctive voice as he tried to call Max's attention. I couldn't figure out why my heart was beating so hard. Max, of course, didn't answer.

Wait, what was I thinking? I wasn't in the movie. Max could not be the person in the taxi in front of mine. It just wasn't possible.

I waited on bated breath for the person in front of me to call out, for the man who looked like Vincent to turn and enter the back of that taxi. But nothing happened. Vincent kept moving towards my taxi, and suddenly he was at my window.

"Hey." he said.

"Hi." I said. I tried a small smile, but I felt I was too tense. This was too weird. This was too wrong. There was no way this could be happening. But, still, if it was, I may as well play the part, right? "Where you going?"

"1039 South Union St."

I motioned my head.

"Hop in."

Play the part? What was I thinking? If this was what I thought it was, this wasn't Tom Cruise in my backseat. It was Vincent, a hardened killer. And I had just volunteered to drive him around town. Not to mention- did I even know how to drive?

I hesitated. This seemed to catch Vincent's eye. Er, I mean, it seemed to catch the guy's eye. There was no way he was Vincent. Not possible.

Deciding I may as well find out whether this was worth trying, I just remembered to turn the meter on… Do they call it a meter? I shifted the car into gear, feeling what I was and wasn't allowed to do through the gear stick. I looked ahead, checked the rearview mirrors for an opening, and then pulled out into the street.

It seemed that, if I had jumped realities, I was occupying a body that had done this many times before. It was a big break on me because I did not logically know how to drive very well, but the muscle memory compensated for what would have normally been sharp, jerking movements. No matter what a relief it was that I could drive, I suddenly realized I had no idea where I was going. Apparently map memory didn't come in the package.

I poked at the computer screen that was in the center of the dash for a couple of seconds while I was driving, and then took advantage of a red light and finished punching in my inquiry. The map laid it out before me, and I began to turn through the streets, sensing the quickest path.

I noticed Vincent was giving me odd looks. I was too tense, I knew it. He was probably beginning to wonder if I was a fraud or if his cover had already been blown. Thankfully, he didn't seem to be interested in reaching for the gun I knew he had stuffed into his belt. His course of action seemed to be trying to make things normal; calm me down with talking. I suddenly realized that I would probably have to talk with him all night. So I tried to calm myself. Again.

"So how long do you think this will take?" He was tapping away at a screen that he had pulled out of his bag.

"Hm… Eight minutes."

"Eight? Not nine, not seven?"

"I take the ideal time it would take to get there and add a couple more minutes. Just in case things go wrong."

Which they were likely to. Although it was, perhaps, unnoticed by Vincent, I was poking fun at my self-esteem and at how stupid I was I was really trying to do with such a simple sentence was make my brain unlock.

"Is it ok if I time you?"

"Go ahead. Don't expect any accuracy in my guess, though."

"And what happens if you get it wrong?"

"You're a few minutes later than you thought you would be, I guess."

He looked at me through the open divider. I saw his look as I glanced in the rearview mirror and raised a brow briefly. I was starting to relax, but not enough. I almost missed a turn as my mind wandered in order to wonder whether I should leave him once I drop him off or not. A part of me wanted to stay and see what happens, and another part of me argued that it was rude to leave someone where they weren't going to get a ride, not to mention this was probably the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me.

_Oh yes, knowingly driving around a hitman to his next hit was so exciting. If I think that's exciting, I just can't wait until he points a gun at _me_!_

I felt outnumbered by the amount of opinions that were bouncing around my head.

"Forgive me if I'm intruding, but you seem a little tense. Is something wrong?"

I couldn't help but sigh. Saying no would be a lie. Saying yes and spilling the whole truth and nothing but the truth would likely get me killed, and there was no way I could pass it off as a joke. So my mind settled on a different truth.

"I'm not entirely here, I, uh…" I watched the traffic nervously. "I have amnesia."

Vincent looked up at me again, his attention momentarily sidetracked from the screen in front of him. Now he was raising a brow.

"Amnesia?"

"Yeah. I know it sounds weird. I can't remember any of the basics. Family, friends, that kind of stuff… But I'm still capable of doing my job, so…" I shrugged. Then I watched Vincent, anxious to see his reaction.

Vincent considered it for a couple of moments.

"Are you telling me the truth?"

"Yeah. I can't remember much at all." This was comfortable; I wasn't lying, so there wasn't much of a problem with it in my mind.

"Hm. What a unique case. Are you sure you should be driving?" His attention had returned to the screen for the moment.

"I seem to be doing alright. I suppose after a while, driving becomes a habit. You just do it, instead of thinking about it. I figure anything like that, I can still do safely."

My mind fled to the gun on my hip and the knives in my sleeves. I flexed my hands on the wheel nervously before making a turn. Was it also muscle memory to use those? Did I know hand-to-hand? If things got tense, could I hold my own against Vincent?

"If it bothers you that much, though, I could always turn in early."

"No, I couldn't ask you to do that. You still know how to drive. It's not really my business. Besides, doing something familiar might help you."

"Maybe." I didn't feel there was a good chance.

There were a few more minutes in which Vincent tapped away at the screen. I was content with the silence and he seemed to be ok with what I told him. I started to relax. It was just going to be this one cab ride. Then I would wiggle my way out of the rest of the night.

"So do you like L.A.?" I heard him in the backseat. He sounded distant, his voice bouncing oddly in the small space.

"So far… I don't really have an opinion. There's bright lights, lots of people who-" I had to stop the car just in time to avoid someone who came out right in front of me. "-do stupid stuff… I should at least be happy it's night. It's not as bad. What about you?"

I already knew what the answer would be, but making conversation felt normal and I needed it.

"To tell the truth, whenever I'm here, I can't wait to leave. It's sprawled out, disconnected. 17 million people. This is the country with the fifth biggest economy in the world, but nobody knows each other."

I listened quietly. I wondered whether this was just his outlook on life, or whether he was testing me for something. Who knew? Of course, the sad part was that I agreed with some of the things he said. The world was too sprawled out, believing a little too much in what my father called S.E.P. It meant 'somebody else's problem.'

"I read about this guy who gets on the M.T.A. here, dies." I looked at Vincent via the rearview. "Six hours he's riding the subway before anybody notices his corpse doing laps around L.A. People on and off, sitting next to him. Nobody notices."

I turned another corner. We were almost there. This was almost over.

"So do you at least know what kind of benefits you get from this job?"

"I, uh, don't think it's that kind of job. No tips, no sick leave…" I tried to pull on all that I could remember from the movie, but not much was coming up. I shrugged, and I saw Vincent give me a small, understanding look. "I don't think it matters much."

"Why not? Wouldn't you rather have a better paying job with more benefits?"

"Nah. I'm fine where I am. Besides, I can't remember what my hopes and dreams are supposed to be. I don't know what job I'd go after if I had the choice." I gave a small smile and chuckled.

"I understand. Better to wait and find out, right?"

I didn't give an answer. He was probably already categorizing me, becoming condescending about how I was playing it safe. Was it really that easy to blame me?

Finally- _finally_ we got there. I pulled up to the cars resting at the curb, recognizing the scene from the movie. I didn't like being double parked; it made me nervous. But I still stopped the car, not daring to go into the alleyway behind the apartment complex. I heard Vincent moving in the back seat.

"Seven minutes. You underestimated yourself."

I turned and smiled politely at him. After putting away his stuff, he shifted forwards in his seat, pulling himself up so that he was closer and a hand rested on the back of my seat.

"Listen, I'm in town for a real estate deal. Closing one night. I got five stops to make; collect some signatures, see some friends. Why don't you hang with me, just for the night?"

Again, the lines from the movie zipped through my head. This was my chance to get out.

"I can't. It's against regulations."

"What, you got amnesia, but you remember the taxi driver's rulebook?"

I laughed, albeit a little tensely. "Not exactly."

"How much do you think you make a night? Can you guess?"

"Er, probably anywhere from three to four hundred dollars."

"Ok. How about we make it six hundred?"

I raised a brow as Vincent flipped six hundred dollar bills out like a hand of cars. I let my gaze move from the money to Vincent's face. He looked similar to Tom Cruise, but everything else about him seemed completely different.

"Man, with amnesia I shouldn't even be driving you here, probably. Look, you can find another cab. I'm not the driver you're looking for."

"No, you are exactly the driver I'm looking for." Damn he was persistent. "You're laid-back and you're able to get me to where I'm going. If I go looking for another driver, I might get stuck with some prick that can't hold a conversation."

Yeah, of course he was interested in someone who was laid back. They'd probably put up less of a fight and cause less trouble. The look on my face must not have been too happy, because I caught a small bit of confusion on his face.

"I… I dunno."

"Yeah you do." he grinned, suddenly sure.

"No, I don't-"

"Yeah you do." Vincent said with finality. He grabbed my hand and put three hundred dollars in it, closing my fingers around it.

"Here's three hundred up front. You'll get the rest when I make it to the L.A.X."

I looked down at the money in my hand. Damn, now it felt as if I was going along with this. If I took off while he was knocking off…er… what was his name? Ramone? Well, if I did that, having the three hundred Vincent gave me would make me feel like I was doing something I shouldn't. As if driving him around town was a good thing.

"What's your name?" I saw Vincent's open hand in front of me. I grabbed his hand.

"Danielle." I said after a brief pause. I had needed to recheck my memory of the ID, just in case.

"Well, I'm Vincent."

Vincent stopped shaking my hand and headed out of the car. He seemed to be checking whether or not his coat was buttoned. I wondered if it had to do with hiding his gun.

"Hey, I can't stay double parked." I called after just remembering.

"Ok. I'll meet you round back."

"Ok." I muttered after a pause.

Once Vincent was off the road, I drove up and around the building, parking in the back alley. I sighed, my mind suddenly thinking so fast it was as if it was a car let loose in the races and Vincent's departure was the green light. I tried vainly to slow the pace down.

Alright, what was I doing back here? I put the money in my wallet because I had no where else to put it. Parking in the alleyway was not the smartest idea. If I stayed here, I was likely to do exactly what Max would've done, which is get my taxi hit by a flying body. Whoohoo. And then if I got stuck in this strange alternate reality, I'd have to pay. Oh, what was I thinking? If I didn't get out of this reality, I was likely to end up dead. I wasn't Max. I was unlikely to have a large effect on Vincent, allowing him to at least postpone my death. Yes, I decided, it was best if I just ditched him now.

I shifted myself so that I could see behind the car better. I was going to back out of this alley and drive away. But then my eyes fell upon the suitcase. Shit. I couldn't just ditch him and take his prep work. Maybe I could put the money in his bag, put the bag on the alley, and leave. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.

I opened the car door and stood up. Then I made my way to the backseat door. My hand was on the handle when a noise above me made me snap my head up. I stared at the apartments above me, thoroughly recognizing the sound of gunshots. I saw a man back up, his body jerked three times, and he fell through the window.


	4. The Hell is I Ching?

**The Hell is I Ching?**

My hand tightened compulsively. At the same time, I started backing up, so the back seat door opened up. The body came crashing down onto the top of the car, making spider webs on the window, denting the roof, and ruining the advertisement that perched atop the car.

I started freaking. I could grab the case now, shove the money into it, leave it on the pavement, and remove the body before I drove off. But no, I wouldn't have enough time. I'd get shot before I was in the car.

And the major problem was that I could not stop staring at the body. He was dead. I didn't need to check anything; I didn't need to check that the blood that was dripping across my windshield was real. Nobody would play a joke this elaborate on little old me, so this was real. Period.

My knees were shaking. I kept flexing my hands. I felt like my breath was constricted; like someone was squeezing on my lungs. I found myself repeating a single cuss word over and over until I was mumbling, and then I grew silent.

_Calm down. Calm down. God, he's dead. Shit. Just calm down. Breath- do something! You've dreamt of things much worse- had nightmares much more gruesome than this. Why are you freaking out now?_

Footsteps to my right finally allowed me to turn my eyes away from the body on my cab. My heart may as well have stopped. Instead, it merely skipped a beat. Vincent, making sure he was unruffled and glancing around to make sure that there was no surveillance, no cops, and no nosy neighbors, walked into the back alley.

"You…" I felt like an idiot, saying this. But it was the only thing that my mind seemed to be able to register. "You killed him."

"Good guess. But no. I shot him. The bullets and the fall killed him."

"You…" I decided not to repeat the obvious, especially if Vincent was just going to be ironic with me. I took a couple of seconds to try and steady my breathing.

"Why's my door open?" Vincent asked, frowning.

I considered just sitting down. I didn't feel steady at all. But my numb mind found myself answering before I really thought about it.

"Was gonna put the money in the bag. Put the bag on the street for you. Drive off." My voice seemed soft and distant. I found myself taking a couple of steps away from Vincent, backing away from him.

A movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention and I froze, my gaze locking with Vincent's. He had drawn his gun. His eyes were no longer glancing around, but were solidly focused on me. As I had figured, he wasn't going to let me run. Still, at least I tried.

"Red light." he said, and then continued. "You were going to ditch me? After we made a deal?"

"Had a bad feeling." I said, regretting the fact that I hadn't turned him aside when he first came up to the taxi.

I didn't put my hands up. Instead, I let them hang there. With a small start, I realized that I could just barely feel my gun through the coat. What if I drew? Staring at the gun barrel before me, I figured it wasn't such a good idea.

There had to be a decision made here. I knew the man wasn't going to put his gun down until he saw either a choice of submission or rebellion in me. So what was I going to do? Well, I had a gun and two hidden knives. Added to the pile was amnesia. I had no set personality, and no set background yet. So why not create them?

"Ok… Fine." I sighed. I glanced around nervously and immediately lectured myself for doing so. "If I'm going to be stuck with you anyways…"

Ignoring the gun that was trained on me, I turned and walked towards the front of the taxi. I grabbed the back of the dead man's coat and rolled him off the car. Then I looked up at Vincent, whose eyes were narrowed. I could feel that my expression was reluctant.

"So where do you want him?" I asked.

Vincent seemed suspicious, but after a moment of thought he put away his gun and began walking towards me.

"Pop the trunk."

I tried not to say something stupid and quote the movie again. It felt weird to say something that was scripted and get the same exact answer that I thought I was going to get. In fact, it was almost fun to mess with. Of course, it was a little less amusing when you had someone who was likely to kill you less than ten feet away from you.

Still not enjoying the situation, I got to the front seat and eventually found the button that would 'pop the trunk.' Then, at Vincent's beckoning, I walked back over to the body.

"You're kidding me, right?" I asked.

"Grab his wrists."

I did as I was asked but, trying to keep some form of normalcy- whether faked or real- I didn't allow my submission to go quietly.

"Damn it, man. Why do you have to put him in my trunk?"

"Would you rather he sat up front with you?"

"Hardly." We stopped at the back of the car. Vincent lifted up the trunk and then grabbed the man's legs again. "Still, why don't you just leave him in a dumpster or something? In fact, why'd you make him fly out a window in the first place?"

We hauled the body into the trunk. Vincent made sure he fit in the trunk without any limbs extending out of their boundaries. Then he proceeded to the backseat. I followed, deciding for once not to be like Max and try and wiggle my way out of it once more. Vincent wouldn't let me go, that was for sure.

"I didn't _let_ him. He fell out of the window on his own."

"Right. And the bullets that came from your gun had nothing to do with it, I'm sure."

Vincent frowned at me. My sarcasm may save my life someday. Either that, or it'll get me a bullet in my head and somebody will find that the man took my suggestion and stuffed my body in a dumpster. The thought was not a pleasant one and I pushed it aside quickly.

I sat in the driver's seat with the door open. Vincent took a water bottle- I have no clue where he got it from- and used it to wash away the blood on the windshield. He'd glance at me now and then, expecting me to run or at least try something stupid. I just sat facing out of the car until he was done.

Next, Vincent fetched a roll of duct tape, whose origins are also unknown to me. I had to help him put the sign back together. In fact, I wasn't too happy with the idea and argued that a broken sign is still noticeable with duct tape on it.

"Ok, that's good enough." Vincent said finally.

The man tossed the empty water bottle into the trunk, threw his tie in as well, and then shut the trunk. He made his way to the backseat. I made sure to wait until he was in the car before turning in my seat and shutting the door.

I started up the car and drove to the end of the alley, stopping there. Although I was trying to play it cool by saying rude things, my mind's eye was still stuck on the corpse that was now in my trunk. I wanted to state that Vincent killed the guy out loud, but found it pointless, so I resisted the urge.

"Where to now?"

"Just drive."

Throughout the drive, I began to realize just how much adrenaline had helped me. That hand on my lungs, which had temporarily been driven off, returned. I began taking shaky breaths, trying to calm myself again. I was finding it hard to properly focus, my mind stuck on the dead body in my trunk.

"Shit." This wasn't working. I was losing control. I kept thinking about that one dead body, and then I'd remember that he would kill at least four more people tonight- and that was if I was lucky.

The fact that I had not run for my life and was instead sitting here in the driver's seat, practically escorting him willingly to his next victim, made me feel like I was in on it; like I was as responsible for these people's deaths as Vincent. The thought gave me no pleasure and made my hands feel dirty and tainted. The amount that my hands flexed increased.

It wasn't that I had agreed with what Vincent was doing earlier when I was playing it cool. It was just that the adrenaline had helped me function and going along with it had helped me avoid a bullet of my own. But now I was facing a night of something I did not agree with at all.

I didn't want anybody to die. The thought repeated itself in my head over and over once I stumbled upon it, and questions concerning my mother began popping up. What would she say if she knew I had played along in this bad situation? What would she do in this situation? How would she stop the murder- could she stop the murder? And a more pressing question was how was I going to do what I knew was good and right when Vincent may as well be pointing a gun at my temple all night, warning me not to do anything that disrupted his job?

As long as Vincent had a gun near him, I knew he would draw quickly and shoot without thinking twice. It made me wonder. I had a gun. Would I be able to draw and fire quicker than him?

"Calm down." I heard Vincent order from the back. He was shifting his gaze back and forth from me to his work prep. "You can't drive properly when you're not paying attention. You have to focus on the job now."

I heard him tap on the screen rather loudly. It was obvious he was annoyed that things hadn't gone right. Not only was I a liability now, but he had to worry about managing me as well as getting his job done.

"7565 Fountain. You know it?"

"Um…" I tried to conjure up some memory, but lacking any from this world, I instead resorted to my memories of the movie. "S-sort of." Just in case, I began tapping on my own computer to make sure I knew where I was going.

"How long you figure?"

"Er… Seven… Seventeen minutes." I glanced up at his reflection in the rearview mirror. "Look, man. I'm not ok with this. I don't agree with driving you around so that you can kill people."

"I told you we had other stops tonight."

"You also said you had to visit some friends." I said, angry at the bullshit he was feeding me.

"They're somebody's friends. You drive the cab, and I'll make my rounds. You might even come out seven hundred bucks ahead."

I glanced at him via the rearview mirror again. When he wasn't checking on me or looking at his computer, he was glancing outside and making sure we didn't have a tail.

"Look, I don't mean anything by my disagreement. Hell, my amnesia even means I lack the most basic of knowledge except what's been embedded into me. But it is not my job to escort you to your next hit."

"Tonight it is." Vincent stated even before I was finished talking. He pinned me briefly with one of his more serious looks.

"You obviously don't understand what I'm getting at." The picture of the corpse in my head had become horribly vivid, reminding me of my more gruesome nightmares. I found I was trying to breathe differently just so my stomach would settle down. I refused to throw up in this car. "I swear to God I see another body, I may throw up over it."

Now Vincent's attention was on me. I was becoming a hassle to deal with, I knew. I couldn't help it. Still, he had to assist me in regaining control, or things would get even more troublesome for him.

"Hey. You're stressed. I can understand that. But you need to just keep calm and keep breathing."

"What do you think I've been trying to do?" I grumbled a tad defiantly.

"Are you breathing?"

"So far."

The screeching of car tires snapped my attention to a near-miss that was down the street to my left. I was way too jumpy, my senses on hyper drive. The adrenaline may have abandoned me, but the frame of mind I had acquired while pretending I lived in an area that was constantly at war had by no means left me.

"Ok, here's the deal. You were going to drive me around tonight, never be the wiser, but el gordo got in front of a window, did his high dive… We're into plan B." he paused from observing the scenery and looked at me. "You still breathing?"

"Plan B?" I took the opportunity. "Does plan B always involve taking a taxi driver hostage?"

"We gotta make the best of it." he pressed on, giving me a look. "Improvise. Adapt to the environment. Darwin. Shit happens. I Ching. Whatever. We gotta roll with it."

"'The hell is I Ching?"

"What, you've never heard of it?"

I gave the man a look that clearly said 'do I look like I've heard of it?'

"My point is," he plowed on, "That you need to focus on making it out alive. Do the job, and then this night will be over."

I wanted to say 'bullshit.' I was tempted to just flip out. But I caught myself. I reigned in my impulses and decided to bide my time. If I rebel entirely now, I'll likely end up dead. It was best to at least make him believe I was submissive, if not completely unaware of his mind games.

"So, what? You're given a job and you just kill them without any more information than where they live and how to get to them?"

"That's the way it works." The man's attention had returned to the screen.

"So you only met that guy tonight, and you killed him?"

"What, I should only kill people after I get to know them?"

"No, but…" I couldn't think of what I was trying to say.

"Danielle, there are six billion people on the planet and you're getting worked up because of one fat guy."

"Who was he?" I said, feeling like I was slowly submerging myself in the script from the movie.

"What do you care?" Annoyance was the tone in his voice.

"Why don't you?" I said quickly, before he could go into a rant about Rwanda. And also, I was curious. Despite my fascination for sociopaths, I had never fully understood their disconnection from everyone. I supposed since I was empathic, the idea of not being able to sense other people's problems was as foreign to me as knowing what other people were thinking was to him.

"Should I?"

"I just don't see how you're happy going into the job blind. It's one of the things I never liked about the military; you have to do whatever you're told without any questions and are expected to believe you're doing what's right, no matter what. I just don't like the idea that you can kill someone that easily."

"Have you ever heard about Rwanda?"

"Oh boy." I muttered. He was dead set on making a point here, wasn't he?

"Tens of thousands killed before sundown. Nobody's killed people that fast since Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Did you bat an eye? Did you join Amnesty International or Oxfam? Save the Whale, Greenpeace or something? No. I off one fat Angeleno and you throw a hissy fit."

Was it bad that I just let him ramble on? I glanced at him a couple of times in the mirror. In fact, I almost forgot that I was driving. It wasn't enough of a habit for me to drive without paying any attention to the road.

"I don't know any Rwandans. It's a little hard to take something like that personally when I'm not involved."

The man stuck me with another one of those stares.

"You don't know the guy in that trunk, either."

I sighed and began to focus on driving. There was obviously no point in arguing, so I figured I'd just agree to disagree. I hated being young and inexperienced. The adults could have bouts that had good points and true sentences, but when they threw one good line at me, I came up blank. It was frustrating. At least I had the decency to hold my tongue instead of act like a child and say something completely stupid.

Knowing that I would be of no help while I was constantly disagreeing with Vincent, he drew another card from his hand. If I hadn't seen the movie, it might have actually quelled my arguments for a time. I say maybe because I was a naturally a suspicious person, even when I was 13.

"Ok, if it makes you feel any better, he was a criminal involved in a continuing criminal enterprise."

"Is that what they told you?" I said skeptically. But I was already done fighting, and Vincent could see it. I was resigning myself to my fate for the moment, and his interest was beginning to wander to his preps and the world outside the taxi.

"So… what?" I said, dreading the scene that this line would trigger. I glanced out the window, seeing if I could turn off the street or spot the cop that would come up. But I found nothing, so I continued speaking. "You're just taking out the trash?"

Without waiting for Vincent to say his allotted line, the siren of the car I hadn't spotted went off behind me. The red and blue lights offended my vision, making me flinch. The glare on my mirrors bothered me for some reason.

I pulled to the curb in response to the officer's voice. My hands started to tense a little more, although I had stopped flexing them. This was all I needed. More people adding more stress onto me. I was beginning to suspect I had a health condition or something because I was not feeling too good.

"God, I hate knowing everything." I muttered, earning a look from Vincent.

"Get rid of them." Vincent ordered.

"How?" I asked, hoping he might actually give advice.

"You're a cabby and a woman. Talk your way out of a ticket." The script is strong with this one.

"Fine. I will. Just… don't do anything." I almost added the word 'stupid' at the end, but decided against it.

"Then don't let me get cornered. You don't have the trunk space."

"Jesus, I can't believe you." I said in disgust.

"Believe it."

I stayed silent, my jaw clenched in annoyance. Then, remembering that I was supposed to be acting innocent to cops, I made myself relax. I felt my shoulders lower, and my face became pleasant instead of annoyed and tense. I wasn't going to go for flirtatious. But that was because I had no experience in that area and I wasn't going to make myself look like an idiot.

I heard the car doors behind us slam shut. Then I heard footsteps approaching either side of the car. I kept my hands on the steering wheel.

"He's probably married." Vincent said, looking at the cop to the right. "The other one has kids. Probably his wife's pregnant."

"Quit being an ass." I growled loudly enough for Vincent to hear. At the same time, I heard the left cop's ring clicking on the window. I remembered to relax my features again just before I lowered the window.

"How you doing?" I heard the cop say. Buddy, if only you knew. "My partner's going to help you out on that side."

Wondering why they had to have the other cop tell me I was going to be helped out by his partner, I turned to my right and looked into the blaring light of a flashlight. After showing a flicker of annoyance, I tried to make respectful eye contact with the man. It was a waiting game, I knew that. The longer I extended this, the better. Then they'd get a call, and we'd be off free… Well, actually that didn't seem so exciting since 'off free' for me included being Vincent's hostage.

"License, registration." the man said routinely.

"Sure." I glanced around the car for a moment, wondering where I would put it. Then, copying the movie, I looked where Max had it. They looked right, so I handed them to the cop. He seemed to be fine with it.

"I'm pulling you over because your windshield's smashed." Yes, I know. "Is all this current?"

"Yes sir." Maybe being pleasant wasn't making these guys think of just letting me leave, but I was certain being nervous or disagreeable would make things much worse.

While the right cop examined my papers, the other cop seemed interested in checking for anything unusual about the car. His light fell upon the smashed windshield. I waited for his allotted line.

"Is this blood up here on your windshield?"

I allowed my attention to wander from the cop to my right and instead focused on the windshield, squinting at it while the cop's flashlight was on it.

"I suppose, yeah." I tried to make my voice sound mildly surprised. "I hit a deer earlier."

"You hit a deer?" the cop with my papers said with complete disbelief.

"Yeah, on Slauson." I had an image and a general feeling of where that road was when I said it, making me uncomfortable. How could I know where it was?

"A South Central deer?"

"I know. It doesn't seem possible, but it just jumped out right in front of the car and I couldn't manage to avoid it." Damn, I wish I had better lines than this. I wish I knew what to say other than this.

"So why are you still carrying a passenger?"

"Well, his stop was on the way to the garage. I figured it wouldn't be too much of a problem."

"The problem is that your cab's unsafe to drive and we have to impound it. So we got to do a vehicle inventory. Pop the trunk and step out of the vehicle. Sir," he called Vincent's attention. "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to call another cab."

"Is all of this necessary, officer? I'm just a half a mile from here." Good attempt, Vincent.

"Yes sir, I'm afraid it is. Please step out the vehicle. You too, ma'am."

"If you open that trunk, they go inside." I heard behind me. I turned to the nearest officer.

"You know, it has been a really long night." Goodness, could I think of anything to say that wasn't scripted? "And the barn is right up there. Just… give me a break this once, will ya'?"

"Pop the trunk. Step out of the cab." He opened the door for me, making me frown for the first time since they had arrived at my window.

Suddenly, doubt flickered through me. What if the call never came in and Vincent ended up killing both of the cops? It would be just my luck with the way things were already going.

With a sigh I found that I had no more ideas. Resisting further would cause far too much suspicion, so I got up out of the car. How else could I stall? I just needed a little longer. The cop next to me gave me a look, waiting for me to pop the trunk. I gave a little start, hearing Vincent's door open. The cop must've thought my mind had wandered and I was just remembering to pop the trunk now.

I was just beginning to lean into the car to find the button again when I heard the radio go off. I was so thankful that I actually gave a small sigh of relief before remembering that I wasn't supposed to know about this. I paused where I was, watching the police officers for their reaction.

"Partner, we gotta roll."

I was handed my papers and instructed to head straight to the garage. I watched the cops get in their car, then noticed Vincent was looking at me. He motioned his head towards the car, telling me to get inside.

I got in the car, sighing. The cops drove off, and then Vincent got back in the back seat. He holstered his gun.

"Get going."

**Shieb: And there's the next chapter. It's not much, but I had to go through some more slow scenes in order to get the basics taken care of... I mean, it didn't just feel right to jump from her driving to... er... Well, a scene that'll happen in the next chapter.**

**Anyways, the next chapter is good. It's where I start mixing things up and calling up questions for the main character. Mainly, I confuse her and stress her even more. Mwahaha! I'm so evil to my characters... Please read on. A new chapter will be posted soon.  
**


	5. What is it With This Guy?

**What is it With This Guy?**

I pulled into the alleyway next to where Vincent's second hit would be. Still hating the situation, I waited for Vincent. He was shuffling around, putting the computer back in the bag and taking out 'official' papers that would let him in to see the man. What was his name? Sylvester Clarke?

I heard the sound of a gun clicking. And then, finally, Vincent got out of the back seat. He opened the passenger's seat and sat next to me, holding a couple of ties in his hands. I frowned at him.

"Hands on the steering wheel, at 10 and 2."

I did as I was told, not bothering to ask why. The man bound my wrists to the steering wheel. I shifted my hands around uncomfortably. Oh well. At least I wasn't going with him. Now that would be a nightmare.

After making sure I was securely stuck to the steering wheel, Vincent got out of the car. Just as his feet hit the pavement, I heard Lenny the dispatcher's voice on the radio. I had thought that the time I hadn't spent talking may have given a little more time, but apparently I was wrong. Vincent leaned down to look at me.

"Who is that?"

I looked upwards for a moment, pretending to think. I couldn't know the guy's name- I had amnesia, after all. So I had to pause before I spoke.

"Dispatch, I think."

"Danielle, I know you're out there. Answer the goddamn call." Lenny fumed.

"What happens if you don't?" Vincent obviously wanted to get on with his work.

"Judging by the annoyingness of his voice, he's going to keep calling."

"Danielle, answer."

Confirming my earlier impression, Vincent checked his watch. Then he sat down in the car and grabbed the mike thing… I was beginning to hate not knowing what everything was called.

"Don't blow it."

I gave Vincent a look. Then he pressed a button. I leaned forwards just a little bit.

"Yeah, it's me. What's going on?"

"I just got off the phone with the cops. Desk sergeant called to check if you brought the cab in."

"Ok. And?"

"And aside from I hate talking to cops, they tell me you crashed the goddamn cab?" he said angrily.

"No." Just like in the movie, Vincent didn't press the button fast enough so I had to start over. "No, I was crashed into."

"Do I care what, where, or why? You're paying."

I couldn't believe that I was feeling the sting of injustice. This wasn't even my real life and I was getting angry at Lenny. I knew it was showing on my face.

Vincent looked around to see if anyone had taken an interest in this cab. Then he looked back at me and saw the look on my face. I nodded my head, and then shrugged.

"Ok then." I mumbled. I was _so_ done.

But Vincent didn't seem to be satisfied with my reply. He glanced around once more. Then he shook the object in his hands a little, supplying for me: "It was an accident. You're not liable."

I wanted to object, but the button was already pressed.

"It was an accident. I'm not liable." Ugh. I really needed a lesson in voice acting or something. I was sounding as lame as Max had.

"Bullshit. I'm making you liable. It's coming out of your pocket."

This time Vincent was quicker, supplying for me again: "You tell him to stick this cab up his fat ass."

"No." I said, jerking my head away from it.

"Why not?"

"I have no interest in fighting over this."

"So he's going to make you pay for something you didn't do, and you just accept it?"

"Not everyone thrives on conflict. It's not worth arguing about."

"You still there? I'm talking to you." Despite my good words, Lenny was really starting to piss me off. There was just something in his voice that made you annoyed at him.

"She's not paying you a damn thing." Damn it, why did Vincent have to get involved?

"Who the hell is this?"

Vincent glanced around. He flipped my visor down, and then glanced around for another moment. Finding nothing especially helpful, I guess he had to make things up on his own.

"Albert Riccardo, District Prosecutor. A passenger in this cab and I'm about ready to file a lawsuit against you."

"Let's not get excited, here." Lenny, suddenly messing with someone higher up on the food chain than he was, began backing up sharply. I resisted the urge to smile.

"Not get excited? How do I not get excited, listening you try to extort a working woman? You know goddamn well your collision policy and general liability umbrella will cover the damages. What are you trying to pull, you sarcastic prick?"

"I was just…" Lenny started before Vincent interrupted him.

"Tell it to her." Then he turned to me, moving the thing closer to me. "Here, tell him he's an asshole. Go ahead."

Ok, this one I could actually agree with. So I leaned just a little closer to the thing.

"You're asshole." I tried to say as convincingly as possible.

"Now tell him, he pulls this shit again, you'll stick this yellow cab up his fat ass."

Vincent clicked the button expectantly, but I had moved my head away from the mike. I had already stated that I wasn't going to say that. Vincent released the button, looking at me in an annoyed fashion.

"I think that's good enough." I said a tad quietly.

Vincent didn't seem convinced, but he turned, put the thing back, and put his feet on the pavement. He took a last look at me before exiting the car and closing the door. I watched him go out of sight. As soon as I couldn't see his grey suit and flecked hair, I switched my gaze to the things that were binding me to the steering wheel.

They were tight, and no matter how I tried to wiggle, I couldn't fit my hands through. If only I had small hands. This moment would have been so much easier.

Ok, I had to shift my way of thinking, that was all. What else did I have available to me? I could gnaw my way out of it. It was possible, but it would probably take far too long to actually manage. Ok, then. I also had my knives that were hidden in my sleeves.

Oh dear. We had a problem. How did I use them? And even if I managed to find out how to use them, what if I missed the tie and instead stabbed the steering wheel or the dash? If Vincent came back to that, I would likely get a pat down. Now wouldn't that be an interesting conversation.

I pressed my wrists against the steering wheel, feeling the blades and the mechanics they were connected to. Although the ties got tighter, I made my wrist turn to the side. Then, taking a guess, I flicked my hand backwards after making sure my wrist was clear of the steering wheel.

A black-bladed knife sprung out of my sleeve, making me jump and completely missing the tie. Ok, this was great. I could get it out. Now how did I make it go back in? Not five seconds after I tried tinkering with it, what felt like a counter weight in my sleeve suddenly pulled the blade back and hit my arm.

"Ow." I mumbled though gritted teeth. That was going to bruise.

Ok, I was running out of options. I could keep trying to cut the tie with the knives, but my chances were slim. Also, with my luck, I was likely to get free just as Vincent got out of the building, and that would bring up too many questions.

I couldn't believe I was doing this. But now I was considering asking other people for help. God, what was wrong with me? I was too proud for this. In fact, I honestly didn't ask help from anyone unless I trusted them a lot and needed it a lot. But I suppose intense situations called for change.

Should I call for help? The images of the two punks who had robbed Max getting shot by Vincent, whose attention had refocused on the cab the second he had given the last bullet, popped into my head. 1.3 seconds. No, it was definitely not a good idea to get more people involved and dead.

"Damn it." I muttered. Then I kicked the dashboard out of frustration.

For a second, I froze. I watched the road in front of me intently, waiting to see yellow flashes. But I had missed the button, thank goodness. No attention was likely to be attracted. It was both a lonely and gratifying thought.

A couple more minutes and I saw Vincent round the corner and come into view. He glanced up and down the alley, and then came to the taxi. I must've had the air of a guilty failure because he gave me an odd look after he sat down next to me and flipped out his knife.

"Don't look so happy to see me." he said sarcastically as he cut me loose.

"Yes, well, it's easy to get disappointed when your last-second attempt to escape doesn't work quite the way you hoped it would." Honestly, what was the point of lying to him right now? He probably knew that I had been scrambling to get free the moment he was out of sight. Still, he gave me a look similar to that of a parent scolding a child for something they did wrong.

Vincent moved to the back seat, his gaze sharp and making sure that we were not being noticed yet again. I waited for his order before starting up the car and driving out onto the street. Remembering the next scene that would happen in the movie, I looked down at the gas meter.

"Gonna have to stop at a gas station sometime tonight."

Vincent looked away from the street to double-check what I was saying.

"Alright." He told me where to go to pick up gas, and I drove there as obediently as I had driven to the second hit. The whole thing where I was doing whatever he told me to was really beginning to get on my nerves.

The gas station was quiet. In fact, I had noticed that at night, the entire city of L.A. was pretty quiet compared to its daytime counterpart. It was nice. It was a difference to all the gun-flinging scenes that had been playing both through my head and as my current life. At least I wasn't being shot at… yet.

I was beginning to become almost as watchful as Vincent. Getting used to driving had allowed me to settle into a constant vigilance, and the added possibility of being tailed or shot at had kept me at high alert for the last hour. Even as I stood at the car, holding the handle for the gas pump, I would glance around in the directions that Vincent wasn't covering at the moment.

Speaking of Vincent, he was facing away from me and the cab. He had been keeping a more vigilant watch than I had, even in the car. The man had told me to come here only after he was done looking over his prep. Likely, he was already thinking of his next target.

With a sigh, Vincent turned to me. I gave him my attention as I heard the gas pump click. It was done filling my tank.

"If you try and escape, you may end up attracting attention, and people who don't need to be involved will die."

Damn it. For once, could we not talk about something that's scripted? I gave Vincent a look, annoyed that he thought I was too stupid to understand what he was saying.

"This I know. Why do you think I didn't turn the caution lights on and start screaming out the car window?"

"Are you sure you understand?"

"Positive." I said dryly.

"Alright, then." Vincent glanced at the road again, and then checked his watch. "But, hey, new news." I heard him snap. "We're ahead of schedule." Then he clapped. Why was he so fidgety? "Like jazz?"

I spared having to answer when I heard the taxi's radio go off.

"Danielle. Pick up, damn it." Lenny's voice was as annoying as always.

Vincent sighed. "What is it with this guy?"

The man strode over to the taxi. I made no move, suspicious that I would get reprimanded if I did. The passenger's door was opened and Vincent stood up with the mike-thing in his hand.

"You hassling my driver again?"

"Who's this?"

"The same guy you talked to last time."

"Danielle's father called. Put her on, please."

"Hold on." Vincent looked at me. I had made sure the gas pump was set up properly and I had come around to his side of the car. He handed me the device. "Carefully."

"What's going on?" I said, keeping my gaze trained on Vincent for cues.

"Your father won't leave me alone. He says you won't answer your cell phone, and he's wondering why you didn't show up."

I had a cell phone?

"Show up for what?" Vincent asked.

"Tell him that I'm not coming tonight, will ya?"

"Tell him yourself." Lenny said rudely. "I'm not related to you."

I gave Vincent a look. Was it ok with him if I went to go see my father? Hell, I didn't want Vincent anywhere near my father, but it wasn't really my choice what I did tonight, was it? I got the smallest of nods after viewing the man's jaw clench briefly.

"Thanks for letting me know." I said into the mike before handing it off to Vincent. Vincent put it away while I rounded the car to the driver's side and opened up the door.

"Show up for what?" Vincent asked again, leaning down so he could watch me through the open passenger's door.

"Taking a guess here, I'd say I visit him on a routine… Not nightly, but… weekly."

"So you remember?"

"It's more a feeling than a memory."

I couldn't figure if the noise Vincent made was one of interest or not. He shut the front passenger door and then got in the back seat. I turned further into the car, glancing at him via the rearview.

"Hurry up, then."

I paused to stare at Vincent's image. Then I returned to searching for my address. I was feeling a bit argumentative, due to the stressful idea of meeting a father I didn't remember.

"I'm sorry, we're going?"

"Yeah."

"Why am I taking you anywhere near my family?"

"Because if you don't show up tonight, it breaks routine. People start looking for you, this cab. That's not good."

I gave an unconvinced grunt. He was going to kill me anyways; what did it matter if people went looking for my corpse?

"And anyways," Vincent went on, "like I said, we're ahead of schedule. We have some time to kill."

"Ah!" I must've given the impression that I wasn't listening, since my noise of triumph plowed over the last of Vincent's sentence. "Found it." I glanced in the rearview to see the look on Vincent's face. "What? Remembering addresses is not considered muscle memory."

Although I had to punch in the street on my computer, driving there felt extremely familiar. There was nothing wrong with it, but the feeling of nostalgia mixed with knowing I could not have possibly gone here before was extremely confusing. I was beginning to doubt everything that I knew. How could I have one set of memories up to the age of 13, and then suddenly be having these other memories after being tossed into the Collateral world? After the headache came, I decided to stop thinking about it.

I pulled into the driveway of the house almost without thinking about it. The car parked on the shoulder of the driveway, my nervousness making me want to maneuver away from the house. Vincent shuffled in the backseat and I waited for him to go for the door before I got out of the cab.

"Let's make this quick." Vincent said while looking at his watch. "You have maybe fifteen minutes before we leave for the jazz club."

"Yeah, yeah." I was already making my way to the door.

The house that my father lived in wasn't necessarily enormous, but considering the fact that I was a small town girl who lived in houses that were just as small, it was huge to me. The place looked like it had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and Lord knows what else. Not to mention there was a garage, which I had been tempted to park in when I first drove up.

I got to the door, hesitated, and then knocked. There were a few moments in which I doubted. I thought maybe I should have rung the bell, or maybe I just should've entered the house and said 'I'm here!' On the other hand, this might be the completely wrong house. But I was spared my doubts when my old man opened the door.

**Shieb: Aha! Anybody who reads this must be thinking 'finally, it changes the story up a little bit'. As things go on, I assure you that I will make things more and more different. My only problem is that I'm wondering how to get Fanning involved... :(**

**Also, since I'll be working on the rest of this more and the end begins to near for Book 1, people who are interested should be thinking about what world they'd like to toss Danielle into next. It could be anything- a movie, an anime, a manga, a book... It's pretty much anything goes. All opinions are appreciated!**

**Lastly, if you want to know what I will be doing or what I am doing at the moment, you should check out my profile. At the bottom, I tell you my intentions for each project I'm working on and how much I will be working on them.  
**


	6. Behind the Notes

**Behind the Notes**

It took me a moment to realize that I actually recognized this man. He looked somewhat like my father from the other world, with the same kind of suppressed intensity that I was used to. The man had black hair and a mustache. He stood with a straight back and his eyes were a very green hazel.

"You finally got here." Whoa. His voice was way different. A little higher pitched than I thought it would be, and a little scratchy, too. "I was worried. You weren't answering your cell phone."

"I'm fairly certain I forgot it." I said after a moment's pause.

"Well, come in." And my father stepped aside, gesturing inside the house.

Vincent and I entered the house. I glanced around, noticing that the carpet was thick and white. The walls were just as white, and the pieces of the house that I could see were clean.

"So who's your friend?"

"Um…" I turned to Vincent, waiting to see if he had a story for himself.

"I'm Vincent. I've been trying to help your daughter through her problem."

"Problem?" the man said, walking into the living room with us in tow. He sat down on a chair that had a blanket covering its wooden arms and soft cushions.

"I have amnesia." I supplied.

My father gave me the same strange look as Vincent had. He looked at me for a few moments, seeming to measure me in some form. Then he nodded, seeming to confirm something to himself.

"So you have amnesia?"

"Yes." I nodded, resisting the urge to say 'sir'. I had a feeling this man had come from the military at one point. "I woke up in the taxi not knowing anything about myself or what I was doing there. That's about the time I ran into Vincent."

"Well. Thank you, Vincent, for taking care of my daughter. It's nice to know there are some good men out there."

"It's no problem, sir."

Before, Vincent had been paying the barest attention to the conversation. Now I noticed a spark in his eyes, and he seemed much more interested than he had been before. Perhaps just a little pat on the back was all he was looking for. Then again, if that was what he was looking for, why would he take a thankless job like being a hitman?

"So you woke up in your taxi with amnesia, and Vincent became your fare. Then what? In fact, why didn't you just head straight home?"

"She wasn't sure she had a home or family to go to. It was only when the dispatcher called that we knew for certain. And then it was just a matter of finding the address."

The man considered what he was being told again. He rubbed his chin with his forefinger and thumb for a moment, looking at the both of us.

"Well, sit down, won't you? I feel like there are a couple of soldiers standing in my living room."

"I wonder why." I said none too seriously, earning a glance from Vincent. My… father didn't seem to have any problem with the remark.

"So is there anything I can get you to?" the older man offered.

"No. We can't stay long, actually." Wow, was I really playing along this well? If it weren't for the fact that I may end up dead at the end of the night, I'd call it a win! "Vincent is still a fare. He has places he needs to get to."

"That's a shame. Oh well."

"So why do I usually visit?" I asked. I felt that the more information I got, the better, though I wasn't sure why. It wasn't like I could ask him about the gun and knives in front of Vincent.

"Well, so far as I can tell, you visit to keep your old man company. After your mother died, you've become concerned about me."

"That sounds like me." I nodded.

"And every time you come here, I find that you haven't eaten anything."

I let my gaze move to the ceiling, suddenly finding an interest in its smallest divots and shadows. I suddenly became aware that I was trying to avoid a question. That is to say, I was feeling guilty. Ugh, what was wrong with me? I was not… _this_ Danielle. I shouldn't be feeling guilty about anything!

"So did you pack food or am I going to make some for you?"

"Er… I think I'll find something while I'm out there."

My father sighed.

"As expected." He turned to Vincent. "Please make sure she eats something tonight. She has a bad habit of starving herself."

"Do not." I grumbled, feeling confident with this argument since me and my mother had the same problem in the world I came from. "I'm just not always hungry."

"I'll make her eat something tonight, I promise." Vincent smiled.

I tried to smile, but I couldn't bring myself to. In any normal situation like this, I'd take the fact that they were trying to take care of me kindly. But the fact that Vincent was just playing along and honestly didn't care if I ate unless it interfered with his job made it hard to take his 'concern' seriously.

A familiar feeling brought me to my feet. Both Father and Vincent turned their attention to me, making me feel a little awkward. I just smiled a little.

"I have to go to the bathroom." was my explanation.

I had at least a sense of how the house was set up, so it didn't take me long to find one of the bathrooms. I used the toilet, but when I went to wash my hands, I found I had the strangest urge to rub them raw. Something burned in my stomach, something familiar to guilt. I had to stop myself from scrubbing through the skin.

Then my hand went to my chest. Something was pressing in on my chest painfully. I vaguely remembered a similar feeling in my own world. Strange, I would have thought the memory would've been clearer, seeing as it only happened a couple of days ago.

I had the sudden urge to cough. Suppressing it was useless, and I found myself hacking something up. My hand flew to my pocket, where I pulled out a handkerchief. The folded cloth was pressed up against my mouth and I spat whatever I had just coughed up into it. Obviously, this happened often to whoever's body I had stolen. Why else would I have grabbed the handkerchief?

Pulling the dark cloth away from my mouth, I found that I recognized the scent. It was blood. I had coughed up blood.

My brain froze for a second or two. Now I was certain I had a health condition. Why else would I cough up something like blood? But what exactly did this mean? Did I have a short time to live? Could I counter-act it? My mind flew to the gun at my hip. Had I chosen a harsh lifestyle because of my predicted short lifespan?

The train of thought was forced to a screeching halt. Why was I thinking about these things? I should stop. Not only was I talking about someone else's life as if it was my own, but I was getting far too involved. Hell, I guess I didn't have a choice in that last part.

I washed the glob of dark goo off the handkerchief. Then I washed my face. I was taking far too long in here, I knew. But it felt good to get away and be alone. It beat going back into the living room and pretending to be somebody else while having Vincent's every word and gesture turn into a warning.

There was a knock at the door. I lifted my head from the towel and caught sight of myself in the mirror. I looked horrible. I was pale, my hair was a little unruly, and I generally looked worn. The worst thing was my eyes, though. You could tell, just by looking at them, that I was having the worst night of my life. I tried to put a content mask on while I heard my- er, her- father's voice through the door.

"Danielle? Are you alright in there?"

I opened the door after nervously checking the gun was covered.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

He looked at my hands as if checking routinely for something. Then he looked at my face, an expression of concern on his.

"Still have the feeling that you're contaminated?"

I opened my mouth to ask him what he was talking about, but I checked myself. If this man was anything like the father I remembered, in either set of memories, I should give him the respect I felt for him. Playing dumb wouldn't help, anyways.

"Yeah. It keeps coming back. And the most frustrating thing is that I can't remember why."

"You don't look well, either. Are you sure you're alright?"

"Do I have a health problem? Like a weak heart or something?"

He paused. "Something like that, yeah."

"Well, that explains the blood I coughed up." I mumbled. I looked down the hallway. The living room was just a couple of rooms away. I wondered if Vincent was listening intensely. I couldn't see him.

"I can't see how you can be so concerned about me when you always run about on those jobs of yours."

"Jobs? Other than being a cab driver?"

"Yes. From what I've gathered, although you've kept it quiet, you go around shooting people." He frowned his disapproval, his voice extremely soft.

I was thoroughly stunned. So I was trained to shoot people. But what kind of job was he talking about?

"Knowing me, it's not like I'm a hitman. Anyways, I haven't remembered anything about that."

"Well, I'll have to tell you what I know when you get back. Maybe then you'll remember. And this guy- Vincent- he's not your partner on some job, is he?"

"Oh- God no." I said, surprising the man with my strong response. "He's just a fare."

The man looked at me, unconvinced. It seemed he had been able to glean a slight bit of what had been going on tonight. Well, it wouldn't be that hard if he knew me as well as a father should.

"Excuse me." Both of our attentions were brought to Vincent, who walked out of the living room and into the hallway. One hand was on the buttons of his coat, the other was holding his briefcase. "I'm sorry to intrude, but if we don't leave soon, I'll be late for a meeting."

"Well, you can find another cab, can't you?" Damn you, Dad! You really caught on to too much of this!

"Don't worry about it. Vincent's helped me, so I really don't mind helping him tonight."

"You're awfully complacent tonight."

"Maybe he's just very compelling." I shrugged, making my way towards Vincent and the door. I found I wanted family uninvolved more than I wanted to get away from him.

"Alright. But make sure you eat something, for cryin' out loud!"

The door closed behind us. Vincent stayed behind me as we made our way to the taxi. I got in after glancing at Vincent, and then waited for him to get in. For once, he didn't reach for his prep. Uh, duh, Danielle. Of course he wasn't reaching for his prep- he didn't need it anymore.

"Where was it that you wanted to go?" I hadn't watched the movie enough to be able to name the place. This turned out to be a blessing, as knowing where Vincent was going before being told probably would've gotten me shot.

"Leimert Park. There's a jazz club I heard about down there."

"Ok."

I turned and backed out of the driveway. For once, I felt certain as to where I was headed. Just in case, I tapped it onto my little screen. But I didn't reference to it throughout most of the ride. Maybe I was gaining the memories from whoever's body I had stolen. The thought was both frightening and reassuring. It'd be great to know what skills I could use against Vincent. On the other hand, I didn't fancy the idea of losing myself to her identity.

"At least it seems you have a nice family."

I looked up at Vincent via the rearview mirror. A frown lit upon my face. This wasn't in the script. Oh well. 'We gotta roll with it' right?

"Well, let's see… Mom and Dad had troubles staying together sometimes… Mom died, but I knew her for a couple of years before then. I stayed with my dad until college… It's a normal family, I suppose."

"You're beginning to remember. That's good."

I resisted the urge to ask him about his family. I already knew and he'd likely use the opportunity to mess with me like he did with Max. Anyways, what was the point of getting him to repeat what I already knew? I wondered what would happen if I told him his own family history. But the thought made me nervous, so I pushed it away.

"Anything else come to you?"

"Not really. Just flashes and feelings. Daddy made me go through gun training… I think they were short lessons. I don't even know if I could wield a gun with precision again if I wanted to, it was so long ago."

Ok, that was only a half lie. From what I could tell, I was a late teen when I got my gun training. I still had the skills and they had been improved upon later on, if what my daddy said was to be believed. Not to mention, I was getting a general feeling that I was also trained in hand-to-hand. I was feeling a little better about butting heads with Vincent, should the moment arrive.

"He seemed to care a lot for your well-being. When I talked with him, I got the sense that he was more concerned for you than you had ever been for him."

"Fathers are like that, even if they don't show it to their children."

"I'm not so sure."

I gave an inaudible sigh. We were going to get on this subject no matter what, weren't we? Oh well. It was still conversation, and I was happy with at least that.

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"My father wasn't like that."

"He was the violent type?"

"Yeah. He'd get drunk, beat me up. Hated everything I did."

"Right. Sorry. I forget how lucky I am sometimes."

I suddenly started giggling after a pause. I hadn't realized there was a pun hidden in that sentence. I glanced at Vincent, who seemed to miss the joke.

"Sorry." I mumbled. I searched for another subject, and then eventually came up with something. "So you like jazz."

"Yeah." Vincent's attention was out the window. He seemed to be momentarily interested in checking for a tail again.

"How'd you get into it?"

"Heard about it from my father. Well, he didn't talk _with_ me about it. I overheard him talking to a friend."

"So you just kind of got into it on your own?"

"Well, _he_ certainly wasn't going to help me."

I watched him for a time, getting nervous around the touchy subject of Vincent's bad father. I wondered if his father was the cause of Vincent's sociopathic tendencies. Or was he just born that way? If his mother had lived, would she have made any difference?

I reached for the radio. It had been on the entire time, but it had been playing some type of classical music. I hadn't really bothered to pay attention to it, especially since it was quiet enough to ignore when the knowledge that there was a hitman in my backseat had taken up the entirety of my thought capacity.

It took a few moments of flipping through both familiar and not-so-familiar stations before I heard something that sounded right. I had to stop and listen intensely to make sure that it was what I was looking for. I almost looked at Vincent to check that it was right, but I ended up just leaning back into my seat with jazz playing from the radio.

Vincent's gaze made me nervous. No doubt, he was wondering why I changed the music station. I avoided his gaze, feeling awkward because I had just done something nice for someone who was planning on killing me tonight. Oh well. It was my nature. And I knew that my mother would be content with that choice, despite the situation, so I was satisfied.

During the rest of the ride, Vincent had talked a little more, telling me about the famous jazz musicians that used to play at this club. I inquired when necessary and was content with merely listening. But something seemed to bother Vincent suddenly, and he had stopped talking. I wondered what had bothered him.

We pulled up to the curb outside the club. It was late, and we'd be lucky to listen to a couple of songs before the place had to close down for the night. We both got out of the car. Vincent actually left his briefcase in the taxi, which I locked up.

If only we had actually been here for only the jazz. Maybe then he would've been alright without his gun. Ugh, what was I saying? Vincent would never ever leave his gun behind, not unless he was forced to.

We found our seat inside the club. Only by looking for them, I found a few good reasons why we sat there. Vincent had a pretty good view of the entire place from that seat. He wasn't backed up against a shadowy wall, which would given the impression of a creepy stalker. And, of course, he had a nice view of the stage, where Daniel was playing with the band.

While I waited for the inevitable scene that would end up in Daniel's death, I watched Vincent. He was actually, truly interested in jazz. His eyes had lit up and there was something different in his face, although I couldn't quite place what it was. And because of what I'd heard in the car, I found that it was hard to doubt that this was real.

Vincent ordered a drink. I refused one, and then Vincent mumbled something to the waitress. I figured he was asking Daniel over for a drink.

Listening to jazz was weird. I could usually predict the notes that were coming up next or at least hear the general tune of any song. But this jazz session was throwing me totally off. I couldn't hear any of it in my head, and half the notes Daniel played were completely unexpected.

"I'm not used to jazz." I was leaning forwards, but now I pulled myself into a straight sitting position.

"It's off melody. Behind the notes. Not what's expected. Improvising, like tonight."

"You're really into this improvising thing, aren't you?"

"Most people, ten years from now, same job, same place, same routine. Everything the same. Just keeping it safe over and over. Ten years from now. You don't know where you'll be ten _minutes_ from now. Do you?"

He looked at me, and I gave a small glare.

"You keep changing everything on me." I said in my defense.

Vincent turned his attention back to the jazz. I was unable to really enjoy it, so my mind pursued other things. Like where I was.

Were more unscripted moments going to pop up? It wasn't like there was something wrong with them. It just felt weird. And I was always terrified that I might say something wrong. If everything was following what I knew as a script, I could tell what I could say and what I should avoid. But as soon as things started changing… I guess it was just a control thing. I always had been a bit of a control freak.

And where was I, anyways? The fact that things didn't go exactly as the movie had gone made me wonder if I was really in the movie. But if I wasn't in the movie, where was I? Was I just in an alternate universe that was extremely similar to the Collateral movie? If that were the case, the unscripted parts would make more sense. So would the dual identities.

But even then, the very thought of being in an alternate universe begged the question: How did I get here? All I remember was falling asleep, feeling light, and then waking up in a taxi in this world. Maybe it had something to do with that strange happening in the forest.

I rubbed my chest. The pain I felt now was quite different from the pressure that the strange presence had left me. Vincent noticed. Even as he enjoyed the jazz, he kept aware of his surroundings, glancing around now and then. I put my hand back on my lap the moment he noticed my action. I wonder if he knew that I had a heart condition yet.

The waitress stopped at our table, putting down a drink for Vincent. A plate of food slid in front of me, making me stare at it in surprise. Then I looked up at Vincent, who glanced at me.

"I promised your father I'd make you eat something tonight."

I gave Vincent a withered look, although it glanced right off Vincent because he looked back at Daniel in the next second. So I looked back down at my food. I sighed, deciding I should probably put some effort into it. The food might do me some good. But my stomach wasn't pining for food and a small stab of pain in my heart made me think eating was a bad idea. I looked back up at Daniel and felt a squirming feeling in my stomach.

"It's not poisoned." Vincent smiled. Why was he encouraging me?

"Perhaps not the best time to eat." I mumbled finally, looking away from Daniel a moment later than I should have. Vincent surely saw the saddened look I had. Oh well. He'd probably just blow it off. In his mind, it wasn't possible for me to know, for sure, who the next hit was.

I almost wished I didn't.

Still, I tried to pick at my food at least a little while Vincent called a waitress up and asked for Daniel to have a drink with us. So that meant last time, when I had assumed he was requesting Daniel's presence, he was actually asking for my food. I almost felt betrayed.

Eating something felt satisfying, but every time I'd think of the rest of the night, my stomach would tighten up and I wouldn't be hungry anymore. I eventually stopped eating and just waited.

"You're not going to finish?"

It felt like he was scolding me.

"Not hungry." I lied.

"Your father would be disappointed." His voice was mild, making me look at him oddly. A conversational tone of voice was just weird coming from him; especially now that I knew he was a hitman.

"What do you care?"

"I don't." And he did indeed sound like he had not a care in the world as he turned back to his jazz.

**Shieb: Whoohoo! I finally finished this chapter! I'm sorry I haven't been too quick, but I just finished the script I needed to get done, so I'll have more free time to diligently work on finishing this.**

**I'm hoping how I'm writing this is satisfactory. I'm not sure if it is, though, since no one's really given me their opinions. It's frustrating because I don't know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong, you know? But somebody's interested, so I'll keep it going for them, at least.**

**Also, just a small reminder. I will always appreciate any opinions you have about where Danielle should go next. This fanfiction will end up traversing world after world after world. This won't be the only book, so any suggestions would be GREAT!  
**


	7. Panic Attack

"Miles Davis." Daniel said after a moment of silence. He sure knew how to play a crowd, I noticed. And Vincent seemed to be enjoying the story. I was the only one who was getting tenser as the time passed.

"In the flesh."

"That's right. I'm talking about through those doors, the coolest man on the planet."

"Jesus." Vincent breathed.

"Anyway, he had been recording a session up at Columbia, up on Vine. So Miles comes through that door. Before you know it, he's up on the band stand, jamming with the band."

"I mean, it had to be…" I could see a small smile on Vincent's face. He looked absorbed.

"Oh, it was scary. I mean, the dude was so focused, man. Plus, he was kind of a scary cat anyway. I mean everybody and their mama knew you don't just talk to Miles Davis." Daniel shifted in his seat and I noticed his hands were moving around more. "I mean, he may have looked like he was chilling, but he was absorbed."

I lost focus in the conversation. My attention started straying to how many people were in the place now. Vincent had, no doubt, already checked. He may like jazz, but I don't think his mind ever left the job. Still, I heard the conversation even though my attention was elsewhere.

"But did you get to talk to him?"

"Better than that."

"No."

"I got to play for about 20 minutes."

"Unbelievable." His voice was hushed, and I could definitely hear a sense of awe.

My attention started wandering again. I expected to stay there longer, but the conversation was much shorter than I had originally thought. My attention was snagged by Vincent's line.

"That's a great story. I gotta tell the people in Culiacan and Cartagena that story."

Daniel's face fell. The realization of who Vincent was hit him, and I could see that he had suddenly become aware of how much danger he was in. He slowly lowered his glass from his lips. There was nobody around to help; the last waitress had just walked out the back.

"You know the folks in Culiacan and Cartagena."

"Afraid so."

"And just when I thought you were a cool guy."

"I am a cool guy with a job I contracted to do."

"Don't Vincent, please." I didn't feel like I could take much more of this.

"I'm working here."

"Come on, man. You both like jazz, you like how he plays. You ranted to me about how we gotta improvise in life a couple of hours ago. Why not now?"

"A job is a job. You ought to know that, memory or no."

"Vincent, please." I urged him. I set my hand on the table and leaned forwards, trying to get him to look away from Daniel- to do anything other than focus on his prey.

"How's this?" Vincent said after a moment's consideration. "I'll ask a question."

"What question?" Daniel asked, grasping onto anything that could keep him alive.

"A jazz question." Vincent replied almost mockingly. "Now, you get it right, we roll. You disappear tonight."

"If I walk out of here tonight, I'll go so far away it'll be just like I was dead." Daniel promised. He tried to apologize to Felix through Vincent, but Vincent was still too focused on the job to give it much notice. Finally, Daniel shifted in his seat and adjusted his coat. I could see the sweat on his upper lip. "Lay it on me."

"Where did Miles learn music?"

"I know everything there is to know about Miles."

"Then let's have it."

"Careful." I warned. "Vincent knows more about jazz than you think."

"His father was a dentist, East St. Louis. Invested in agriculture, made plenty of money. He sent Miles to Julliard School of Music, New York, 1945."

I closed my eyes and got up from my seat. In the next second, Vincent had pulled his gun and set three bullets in Daniel's head. Vincent caught the man's head before it hit the table and set it down softly. Then he placed a hand up on the table, giving the illusion that Daniel was sleeping.

But I was already gone. I didn't need to wait to see that strange moment where something happens with Vincent. I had already seen it on the TV before. Besides, I was getting a little sick of watching all of this without any kind of separation; watching everything on TV was different. My path weaved between the tables. I avoided all noisy chairs and made it outside with no sound.

My courage failed me when I reached the taxi. I should just get in and drive off, abandoning Vincent to the rest of his murdering acts. But fear kept me in place. It also enraged me, since my fear meant that Vincent had control over me. But what else would I do? I wasn't willing to die, although if things were the way I thought they were, I may not have long to live anyways.

Vincent found me outside the car, leaning against the passenger's side with my arms crossed. His eyes seemed dangerous. I could tell that after he had snapped out of that strange sensation, he had immediately refocused onto how likely it was that I had just driven off. His eyes scanned the street, checked for people, and scrutinized the cab. When he looked back at me, I couldn't help but glare at him.

"What?" he asked, annoyed.

I shook my head and sighed. There was no point in explaining to him, was there? So I made my way around to the driver's side and got in. Vincent followed suit, and his attention immediately turned to his work ups. I was in a bad mood, and he noticed. But he didn't comment.

"Can you not do anything awful for… five seconds?" I suddenly blurted. This was bad. Some part of me recognized that I was losing control to my anger and stress, but that part seemed small and far away compared to whatever was currently grasping my mental state.

"Just focus on the job."

"I am." My teeth clenched and my hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Both of them."

"Then stop focusing on my job and only focus on yours."

"That's a little difficult, seeing as I have something called a conscience."

"You care about a criminal dying?"

"Being a criminal and being bad is not the same thing. That was not Daniel the psychopath in there, Vincent."

"How do you know?" Vincent taunted. "He could have been pretending to be friendly. You can't just assume how people are, Danielle."

"Everyone _can_. I should've listened to myself before and just left you on the street. Let Max deal with it, like he was supposed to."

"Max?"

"No one. Forget it."

God, my chest hurt. It was getting a bit hard to breathe, but I tried to push it away. I felt horrible, but my mind was focusing on other things. Things like the three dead bodies, one of which was in the trunk. Things like the gun at my hip and how tempting it was to use it now. Things like how short my life probably was already without Vincent pointing a gun at me. I was ramming myself up an emotional wall at this point, and misplaced guilt was getting the better of me. I couldn't do this anymore.

By now, my breathing was painful and it was becoming difficult to drive properly. I heard Vincent in the back, saying something about me calming down.

"Take deep breaths. That's right. Remember, you just have to drive me to two more places, and then the night is over."

I was taking deep breaths, but they weren't helping. I had to pull over to the side of the road, which made Vincent give me a rather severe look. But he didn't push me. Instead, he opted to watch me lean over in my seat and try and control my breathing. Oh, this was hopeless. I reached for that rag in my pocket and opened the door just as I started coughing.

My hacking made my entire body tense. I welcomed the cool air that was outside the taxi, but my throat was starting to burn and my lungs hurt. Vincent got out after a moment's hesitation and looked around, ever watchful. I felt the warm goo on the handkerchief, and then I felt Vincent's hand on my shoulder.

"Hey, you alright?" He sounded less concerned about my health and more concerned about my ability to drive.

I took some breaths, and then I was at it again, hacking up another blob of blood. Finally, I could breathe again. I wiped my mouth and made sure I could breath properly again. Boy, wasn't I just so lucky, landing in this body?

"You good?" I nodded my head, folding the handkerchief properly and putting it back in my pocket. "Alright, let's go."

"Keys are in the ignition." I stated, and then started walking off.

"Excuse me?" he said sharply before seeing me walking away. "Danielle!"

"You know how to drive, right? You don't choose cabs because you don't have a license or something, do you?"

"Danielle." He was starting to sound aggressive, now. I kept walking, hoping I'd find a way to get out of this.

Vincent's footsteps started up behind me, and I turned to see him coming up faster than I thought he was. He was closer, too. My body moved on its own. Once he was in range, his hands reaching to restrain me, I suddenly turned and karate kicked him in the chest, sending him backwards. I was immediately shocked at what I had done and changed from serious to surprised.

"Oh! God, I'm sorry! I didn't mean- I'm not even sure how I did that." I streamed loudly.

Damn, I was too nice. In light of the fact that I might have actually hurt him, I was back to being the 13-year-old girl that I started out as. Vincent was not pleased and, with an angry look in his eyes, came towards me. I backed up, but he was holding onto my wrists in the next second.

"I am not playing. I need you to drive and it would be a troublesome to find a new taxi." I tried to say something, but he interrupted me with a tone that warned me to shut up. "Listen. You've been around long enough to know where you are in this city, despite your lack of immediate memory. You can get me around quickly, and I need that."

I was silent, understanding what he was getting at. 'I need you,' he was saying. It's a good thing he had reworded it, because actually saying that would have amounted to my immediate response: 'Bullshit.'

Ok, at least I had my head back now. I had to think things through thoroughly. And… what was he doing? Vincent's hands were pressing oddly on my wrists. Then I remembered- the knives.

"What is that?" Vincent asked.

I couldn't help the guilt that inevitably leapt upon my face. I opened my mouth to say something, but I had no idea what to say, so I shut it again. I tried again, but the sound 'uh…' was the only thing that came out.

"What is it?" Vincent said again, the words separated slightly and his grip on my wrists stronger.

"Careful." I warned, almost asking. Oh well. There was no point in hiding it at this point, now that he found an interest in it. "They're, uh, hm… knives."

Vincent's severe look made me look at the ground and want to shrink away. He seemed infuriated. Just as I had suspected, I was rudely pulled away from the wall I had been trying to back up to earlier and he gave me a pat down. He found the gun in an instant and took it, giving me another harsh look.

"What? It's not like you found a badge on me or something."_ I_ hadn't even found a badge on me. It didn't seem to make a difference to him, and he grabbed my upper arm, dragging me back to the taxi. I resisted at first, but quickly realized there was no way I was going to get out of this. I didn't even have weapons now. Why did that feel like such a loss?

"God dammit, let go! I can walk on my own!"

Vincent released me by roughly pushing me forward, making me stumble a bit before glaring at him. We moved forward, Vincent staying behind me in case I wanted to run. And I did want to run. Obviously, I couldn't, and it infuriated me. However, different matters grabbed my attention as I looked at the taxi.

I hadn't realized how far away from the taxi we had gotten. Nor would I have believed that Vincent's attention had focused on me for so long that he had lost track of it. Now it looked like there was someone in the taxi, and he was about to drive off. Vincent and I crossed in front of the taxi. I let Vincent head to the driver's door while the thief honked on the horn for me to move. Vincent, with all his unsuppressed fury, must have been frightening because he found the door locked when he got to it.

I sighed, leaning on my taxi. In the next instant, Vincent had opened the door and was dragging the man out. He was not quiet about it, talking about how rude it was to drag a driver out of his taxi. The man was apparently unaware that I was the original driver and Vincent was a very annoyed sociopathic killer. Vincent didn't bother with him, instead just tossing him to the side and motioning for me to take my spot. I moved to where I was beckoned. But before I got in- with one foot in the car- I turned to the thief, who was watching with what seemed an expression you would expect on a child who was waiting to see what resulted from their prank.

"Keys." I said commanded shortly.

The thief's face fell. In the next instance, he was smiling and held them up, jingling them teasingly.

"You want your keys back?"

"Do you want to piss blood?" I countered. I could tell that Vincent was restraining himself next to me, and I was thankful. But we needed to go before this man ended up as another body in my trunk.

The thief looked sheepishly from Vincent to me. Then he snorted and tossed the keys to me. Obviously, even he knew that Vincent was not one to mess with. It almost made me feel like I was something to be reckoned with as well. Almost.

"Thank you." I said when we were back on the road. "For not killing him."

"It would've been a waste of time." He said, tapping at his little screen.

"You know what I mean." I sounded tired, even to myself.

Things almost seemed calm on the night roads of L.A. My earlier coughing had left me with shaking hands and an aching chest. Emotions were obviously not helpful to my health. The fact that I had missed a chance to flee did not improve my mood.

Vincent wasn't preoccupied with his screen for too long. He had already looked at most of the information before I had panicked, so he soon took to looking out the windows. It was obvious Vincent was still angry; his jaw clenched and unclenched and his eyes seemed intense. Or maybe they were always intense. I didn't even know anymore.

"So what else have you been hiding from me?" Vincent said mildly, although he still looked annoyed.

'_You mean besides the fact that I'm not even _from_ this universe?'_ I thought.

"Um… I have a heart condition." I offered.

"Makes sense." Vincent said after a moment. "You're already paranoid about dying. Seeing me kill criminals must not be helping."

"You almost sounded like you cared." I sneered quietly.

"Maybe you should stay in the car next time. Let your heart rest."

"Yeah right. As if you'd be able to trust me alone in the car."

"I might." said Vincent, considering it.

"You and I both know I'd book it as soon as you were inside, regardless of whether my hands were strapped at ten and two. So obviously, I'll be coming with you."

"I see." Vincent sighed. He seemed to be regaining his mask, almost sounding disappointed as he spoke. "You _would_ run."

"Look, you got the grey hair thing going for you, but you're not _that_ good looking."

Vincent's expression was subtle, but I could tell he seemed surprised I was bantering already. So was I. I felt hollow somehow, drained. But I was still moving for some reason, with the easy grace of someone who's done this before. Something inside let me keep talking as if circumstances were as they were, and that was that, without good or bad. My mind rearranged itself so that I took both the bad and the good and tried to fit them so that they could benefit me and land Vincent in jail.

"So you're a killer, huh?"

I glanced at him through the rearview. Was he trying to keep a distance? Or was he just being his typical ass self, making fun of me?

"What, do you listen in on conversations?"

"Your father's house isn't that big."

"Like that justifies it." I said quickly.

"Quit avoiding the subject."

He looked at me a little sternly, and I sighed, checking traffic longer than I should have before turning.

"I don't know. Not for certain."

"Then what do you know?"

"Just flashes." I felt myself getting tense for some reason. Why did this subject bother me so much? "A few days at a shooting range with an instructor standing behind me. Playing with a butterfly knife in my room, making sure Father didn't notice… Nothing that matches up with a life as a secret agent or something, besides playing too much Assassin's Creed. That'd explain the retractable knives.

"What are you doing asking about me, anyways?"

"I shouldn't find the fact that my cabbie driver was carrying a bit strange?"

"You should be less interested with what made me who I am and more interested in getting the next two hits done and how best to snuff me out."

He looked at me again. Why was he always so intense? I hated it when he looked at me; it always made me feel like I had done something wrong or I was in trouble.

"Snuff you out? What makes you think I'm going to kill you?"

"I'm not an idiot, Vincent. I'd serve as evidence as much as the people you're killing. If I had still harbored some naïve hope of making it out alive or without a conflict tonight, I wouldn't have run."

My voice dropped to a low mumble, but Vincent likely didn't have a problem hearing me in this small car. The space felt more like a prison to me tonight. He looked at me, analyzing the reluctant truth on my features. I glanced in the rearview, and I saw him formulating how best to boost my morale, so he would have less trouble through the night. But I also saw something else just before he made as if to check for a tail again. The look was recognized as a tentative question. He was uncertain about something… maybe. Maybe I was just reading this all wrong.

"I'm not going to kill you." He said finally, still looking out the window. Then, "Probably, if you keep your mouth shut." was added with a brief glance at me.

Now I was the one with the questions. Was this a gesture of good faith, made in the disguise of a man trying to maintain control? Or was what I saw as a flicker of morals just the result of a fan girl's mind trying to make the best of it? I didn't doubt in my own ability lie to myself. Still, if I could rouse whatever had made him pause after killing the jazz man, perhaps I could make it out alive.

"Charlie Parker. I like this song, turn it up."

I obliged, extending a hand to turn the dial, but not so much that he would be drowned out. Not that I wasn't tempted. Sitting back in my seat, I sighed softly and tried not to flinch as my heart gave a throb.

"So do we have a destination, or do you want me to keep driving in awkward circles for a little while."

"Yeah." He seemed to have forgotten to tell me, and he reached for the screen in his bag, though I was sure he didn't need it. "Head for, uh- Ah!"

There was suddenly a bright spark in the backseat, and Vincent jumped in surprise, his screen spitting at him like some kind of mad cat. By the way the light was back there, I figured the screen wasn't exactly behaving either, and eventually Vincent was forced to drop the screen and watch it die. Quietly, I glanced at the backseat through the rearview, a little anxious, both for myself and for him.

"Are you alright?" I asked, futilely trying to cover up my concern with gruffness.

Vincent cussed a little, glancing around for something to take his frustration out on, and finding nothing suitable. He tentatively reached out for the screen, which sparked once more before apparently dying for good. The screen wouldn't turn on, and no matter how many times the hitman smacked the side of it, the thing was determined to stay dead.

**Shieb: Aren't these sort of twists and turns fun in a story? What will happen now?**

**Admittedly, this chapter was done a long time ago. I don't remember why it wasn't posted a long time ago. Probably laziness or forgetfulness. Regardless, not too long before the very end of this all. Short story, considering it'll only be about 9 chapters. Still a wild ride. I'll be happy to knock this off my 'complete' list.**


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